2015 League General Discussion Thread

Its not a point about realism or logic, its a rules question and a spirit of the rules question.  If there is a rule against suicide attacks, then such a scenario as I outlined, which uses a “show combat” that carries a victory probability equivalent to a monkey typing MacBeth randomly, shouldn’t be legal.  If that is the rule then i’ll be aware of it but I think it is stupid and against the spirit of the game.

I guess you could argue that it’s against the spirit of the rules, but as Adam pointed out, it’s difficult to otherwise decide where the limit goes, i.e. how low a chance of victory is too low for the move to be legal.

It is according to the rulebook that you only need a single unit with attack value sent to make the attack legal.  This has been the rule for many years, going back to AA50 and probably before that.

In your situation, you can send one fighter to Z62 to die, and that makes the fighters to NSW legal, insofar as there are enough potential landing places on the carriers that could possibly pick them up in Z62.

So the answer to your question is a resounding YES, that is perfectly legal and good A&A play.

Here is the quote from Europe rulebook pages 29-30 under “air units” under unit profiles:

You cannot deliberately send air units into combat
situations that place them out of range of a place to land
afterward. In the Combat Move phase, prior to rolling any
battles, you must be able to demonstrate some possible
way (however remote the possibility is) for all your
attacking air units to land safely that turn.
30
This could include a combination of combat moves. It
could also include noncombat moves by a carrier or the
mobilization of a new carrier.
In order to demonstrate that an air unit might have a safe
landing zone, you may assume that all of your attacking
rolls will be hits, and all defending rolls will be misses.
You may NOT, however, use a planned retreat of any
carrier to demonstrate a possible safe landing zone for
any fighter or tactical bomber. Once possible landing
zones for all attacking air units have been demonstrated,
you have no obligation to guarantee those landing zones
for air units in the course of battle. For example, aircraft
carriers may freely retreat or be taken as casualties, even
if doing so leaves air units with no place to land after
combat (such air units will be destroyed at the end of the
Noncombat Move phase). However, during noncombat
movement and new unit mobilization, you must provide
for safe landing of as many air units as possible after all
combats are resolved.

@bmnielsen:

I guess you could argue that it’s against the spirit of the rules, but as Adam pointed out, it’s difficult to otherwise decide where the limit goes, i.e. how low a chance of victory is too low for the move to be legal.

i think a very reasonable rule for a limit would simply be:

if the built-in battle calc run at a (default of) 2000 simulation count computes a 0% chance of winning, then it can be accepted that the battle (short of supernatural intervention) “cannot” be won. this of course would force the attacker to have to bring in more units to raise the odds to at least 1%, but at least then it makes it a bit less of a silly loophole.

this is what rgp44 and i agreed on in our game.

what do you guys think?

House rules are great, you just have to be prepared to play by the standard rules for when you are playing someone else  :-)

@Gamerman01:

House rules are great, you just have to be prepared to play by the standard rules for when you are playing someone else  :-)

yes i agree. in this case it’s my japan that would’ve benefited greatly from this rule, but i felt it was silly and so proposed this house rule to him, and he agreed. we both know of course that others may not be so willing.

Well, I can understand coming to an agreement in a case where one player was unaware of the rule (not sure if that was the case in your game or not).

But when both players know this rule, the defender should be guarding against the possibility.  If you can pull it off against someone who knows the rule but missed the possibility, that’s a different matter, I’m sure you would agree, than pulling it on someone who thinks it’s illegal when he sees it performed.

in our case, we were both aware of the rule, although we just needed confirmation of it. however, we both also felt it was more of a silly loophole than a good rule to follow, and hence our house rule that allowed him to safely keep his navy in 62 WITH all the planes on the carriers and not have to worry about NSW.

@Gamerman01:

Well, I can understand coming to an agreement in a case where one player was unaware of the rule (not sure if that was the case in your game or not).

But when both players know this rule, the defender should be guarding against the possibility.  If you can pull it off against someone who knows the rule but missed the possibility, that’s a different matter, I’m sure you would agree, than pulling it on someone who thinks it’s illegal when he sees it performed.

for me, it seems perfectly reasonable that when the battle calc run at 2000 count says there’s a 0% chance of winning, then the battle cannot, for all practical purposes, be won

@axis-dominion:

in our case, we were both aware of the rule, although we just needed confirmation of it. however, we both also felt it was more of a silly loophole than a good rule to follow, and hence our house rule that allowed him to safely keep his navy in 62 WITH all the planes on the carriers and not have to worry about NSW.

@Gamerman01:

Well, I can understand coming to an agreement in a case where one player was unaware of the rule (not sure if that was the case in your game or not).

But when both players know this rule, the defender should be guarding against the possibility.  If you can pull it off against someone who knows the rule but missed the possibility, that’s a different matter, I’m sure you would agree, than pulling it on someone who thinks it’s illegal when he sees it performed.

With all due respect….

Sometimes I wonder what game it is that you guys are playing.  The “possible landing” is used in the 2nd edition rules (and probably first edition too, but I couldn’t find my copy) from the original Axis & Allies.  Nothing has changed, that has always been the rule, it’s just a bit more explained in some of the more recent versions.  This whole 1% is okay but 0% is not is a bit strange, just saying.  I mean, you are saying that (with rounding) 10/2000 makes it a legal battle, but 9/2000 makes it not.  Yet, the odds calculator will vary by more than that.

Any rule that uses an odds calculator as a criteria is flawed.  And, if you are using that, why not say that you have to have more than a 50% chance of winning the battle?  1% seems really arbitrary.

Again, Axis & Allies has always allowed an attack with planes as long as there is a “possible” landing zone, however remote the odds.

We’ve established that the rules as written allow the attack, that’s one item down.  The point axis dominion and I are making is that it is a loophole or “exploit” and it ought to be adjusted.  To just say “that’s always been the rule” is not the point.  Every out-of-the-box rule was “always the rule” until they were changed or adjusted and countless numbers of them have since the beginning.  You should make an argument for why you think the rule is good.  The 0% rule may be arbitrary but that doesn’t make it a bad idea, since many of you have argued that logic is not allowed in determining the rules I would suggest that all the rules are therefore arbitrary.  I would prefer an arbitrary rule that is reasonable to a rule that is silly.

well we’re using the odds calc to help us draw an agreed upon line between what can or cannot be won for the purposes of determining whether attacking aircraft can meet up with carriers during noncom. it’s just a convention that seems reasonable to both of us. of course it’s not perfect, as odds are just that, odds.

but think of it another way: if you really wanted to win a battle, would you go into it if the battle calc said 0%, unless of course you were desperate? would not most everyone see it as going into a definite loss? i mean, who here really believes, for example, a single plane would ever actually win against a very large fleet which includes 13 fully loaded carriers? anyone who sent a single plane at it would do so knowing they are leveraging a very silly loophole of a rule that basically allowed him to send their large air fleet on a suicide mission, with no hope of actually landing anywhere safely if they survived.

@DizzKneeLand33:

With all due respect….

Sometimes I wonder what game it is that you guys are playing.� The “possible landing” is used in the 2nd edition rules (and probably first edition too, but I couldn’t find my copy) from the original Axis & Allies.� Nothing has changed, that has always been the rule, it’s just a bit more explained in some of the more recent versions.� This whole 1% is okay but 0% is not is a bit strange, just saying.� I mean, you are saying that (with rounding) 10/2000 makes it a legal battle, but 9/2000 makes it not.� Yet, the odds calculator will vary by more than that.

Any rule that uses an odds calculator as a criteria is flawed.� And, if you are using that, why not say that you have to have more than a 50% chance of winning the battle?� 1% seems really arbitrary.

Again, Axis & Allies has always allowed an attack with planes as long as there is a “possible” landing zone, however remote the odds.�

@rgp44:

We’ve established that the rules as written allow the attack, that’s one item down.  The point axis dominion and I are making is that it is a loophole or “exploit” and it ought to be adjusted.  To just say “that’s always been the rule” is not the point.  Every out-of-the-box rule was “always the rule” until they were changed or adjusted and countless numbers of them have since the beginning.  You should make an argument for why you think the rule is good.  The 0% rule may be arbitrary but that doesn’t make it a bad idea, since many of you have argued that logic is not allowed in determining the rules I would suggest that all the rules are therefore arbitrary.  I would prefer an arbitrary rule that is reasonable to a rule that is silly.

My comment that this has always been the rule is to those people who found it a surprise that this was the rule – I don’t know what was surprising about it.

It’s a good rule in combination with the other blocking rules (some described above) such as one destroyer holding back entire fleets and so forth.  Is it good otherwise?  No, but your 1% is more arbitrary than the “possible (however remote)” rule because the “possible (however remote)” is easily defined.  Now, if you want to create a game where 1 infantry doesn’t hold back 50 blitzing tanks and so forth, by all means create it, and I’d love to play it.  But some of these rule changes in recent times have been really game changing rules (not subtle, large, almost an entirely different game).

Why is 1% arbitrary?  Because, does that mean in a particular example that I send 2 subs into the fleet stack instead of one, or 3?  And, is that 1% cumulative – what if there are multiple battles involved and any one victory would allow the planes to land?  Should it be 5%, a statistically non-significant outcome?

This is a league where people should be playing by substantially the same rules.  Otherwise, I don’t see the point of the league, since every game seems to be played by different rules…

sure it’s arbitrary, but the 0% mod at least makes it proportionate, since it’s a threshold percentage. using your example of subs:

calc says:

1 ss vs 1 bb: 6% chance –> so it’s ok per our mod
1 ss vs 2 bb: 0% chance --> so it’s not ok
2 ss vs 2 bb: 1% chance --> so it’s back to ok…

it was relatively easy to overcome the 0% threshold, since the hostile fleet in this case is relatively small.

BUT now imagine instead that there are 10 bb. in this case, it’d require significantly more subs to raise it above the 0% threshold. in fact, a whopping 15 subs would be required, which could be a deal breaker for the attacker as it’d require substantially more to turn the hostile sz into a friendly one. it’s more of a commitment on the attacker, proportionate to the commitment by the defender. without the mod, the defender can have a GOD fleet yet it wouldn’t even matter, as the attacker can just commit a single sub. silly and completely unreasonable.

so this mod seems much more reasonable as it takes into account the relative size of the blocking fleet.

@DizzKneeLand33:

@rgp44:

We’ve established that the rules as written allow the attack, that’s one item down.  The point axis dominion and I are making is that it is a loophole or “exploit” and it ought to be adjusted.  To just say “that’s always been the rule” is not the point.  Every out-of-the-box rule was “always the rule” until they were changed or adjusted and countless numbers of them have since the beginning.  You should make an argument for why you think the rule is good.  The 0% rule may be arbitrary but that doesn’t make it a bad idea, since many of you have argued that logic is not allowed in determining the rules I would suggest that all the rules are therefore arbitrary.  I would prefer an arbitrary rule that is reasonable to a rule that is silly.

My comment that this has always been the rule is to those people who found it a surprise that this was the rule – I don’t know what was surprising about it.

It’s a good rule in combination with the other blocking rules (some described above) such as one destroyer holding back entire fleets and so forth.  Is it good otherwise?  No, but your 1% is more arbitrary than the “possible (however remote)” rule because the “possible (however remote)” is easily defined.  Now, if you want to create a game where 1 infantry doesn’t hold back 50 blitzing tanks and so forth, by all means create it, and I’d love to play it.  But some of these rule changes in recent times have been really game changing rules (not subtle, large, almost an entirely different game).

Why is 1% arbitrary?  Because, does that mean in a particular example that I send 2 subs into the fleet stack instead of one, or 3?  And, is that 1% cumulative – what if there are multiple battles involved and any one victory would allow the planes to land?  Should it be 5%, a statistically non-significant outcome?

This is a league where people should be playing by substantially the same rules.  Otherwise, I don’t see the point of the league, since every game seems to be played by different rules…

I like the rule as it is. It teaches players to become sneaky little bastards :P.

Maybe 1% is too high, maybe a force ratio or attack/defense ratio guideline is better and fairer.  The odds calculator may indeed be a flawed way of determining reasonable attacks but I think the general point of using an unwinnable attack to make a suicide mission legal is a bad rule and should be changed.  This is really the first time I have noticed it so it probably doesn’t occur that often so not that big a deal but a general league convention I think would be easy to apply to the situation.

Right - better than the odds calculator would be to say you need a certain percentage of attack power compared to the total defense power of the fleet.  For example, 1/10.

Suicide attacks happen in almost any war. Sometimes voluntary and sometimes brave men were send into battle knowing they wouldn’t come back. I see no issue with the rule. It means players simply need to be more careful.

@Soulblighter:

Suicide attacks happen in almost any war. Sometimes voluntary and sometimes brave men were send into battle knowing they wouldn’t come back. I see no issue with the rule. It means players simply need to be more careful.

Short, precise and to the point…well spoken!